


All Those Words We Wrote

by Onceyourempire



Series: Star Wars AU ficlets [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Has hints of past wedge/luke so if that isnt yr jam....sorry.....they were bfs, M/M, Wedge is Poe’s Mentor AU, but also poe has had a crush on wedge....for 100 yrs.....and wedge is a sad man
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-15 10:00:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13611009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onceyourempire/pseuds/Onceyourempire
Summary: Wedge has always been Poe’s mentor. As they’ve both grown older, he’s become Poe’s friend. He’s scared of what comes next.{A series of fics set in an AU of an AU}





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Literally as i was writing my mentor au my fucking gremlin hindbrain was like what if poe wants to kiss wedge and i fucking shrieked into my hands 
> 
> This may ALSO be a series bc im just. Like. A trash person? I guess? Wedge is so old and so sad but god I want him 2 be loved by everyone.
> 
> This starts right after the end of ch 2 in my mentor au — should probably read that first for context.

+++

Poe pulls back just enough to rest his forehead against Wedge’s.

Wedge makes the mistake of opening his eyes. Poe’s eyes are close enough that they’re disorienting, blurry, out of focus. Wedge can only see the hint of Poe’s smile out of the corner of his eye before Poe is too close and his mouth is on Wedge’s and Wedge jumps in his arms, just a little.

Poe is out of his reach before Wedge can do anything. His hand lingers on Wedge’s arm before he turns and walks away a little too fast. Wedge grips at air and shakes all the way back to his quarters. He’s glad Poe’s alive (and that’s part of the shaking, he can barely believe it -- it never goes like this for him. They never come back.), but he now has something new to cope with. Maybe it’s nothing, he thinks. It’s nothing at all. He goes back to his meeting with Leia, who looks less stressed then she has in weeks. That’s something though, and he’ll hold onto that. Everything is great, he tells himself. Nothing to worry about.

+++

Poe doesn’t really act any different, per say. He’s still in recovery, argues with Leia and Wedge about getting back into a ship every single day, and spends all his other waking hours sorting through his backlog of paperwork and setting up sims and -- in general? Growing more and more into the commanding officer they’ve all seen in him before.

Maybe it’s Wedge who’s different -- that, or he’s finally seeing what’s been there for a long time. Poe gripping his forearm when Wedge sits on the edge of his bed and looking up at him with his loose grin. The way Poe calls him ‘Commander’, like it’s a joke, like he means it, like it’s special every single time. Poe leaning into his space every chance he gets, no matter who else is around, no matter what they’re doing.

Wedge thinks a lot these days about when they were both younger and Wedge was a little less fragile and Poe was a little more obvious. He remembers a particular moment when he came back to his quarters and Poe was pacing anxiously outside his door. Wedge had let him in, worried about the look on Poe’s face, but had smoothly pushed him out when Poe tried to pull Wedge closer. He had thought that had been it.

It isn’t. Wedge still doesn’t know how to feel about that.

Whatever he feels, he keeps letting it happen. Maybe it doesn’t matter? No one seems to notice anything different, and it seems they got lost in the crowd when they reunited the first time. The real problem, he thinks, is he can’t tell if he’s upset, or if he only feels like he should be.

Poe wraps his fingers around Wedge’s wrist and smiles, eyes crinkling. Wedge smiles back.

+++

Wedge likes Finn. He doesn’t see more than two seconds of him conscious, but he sees what Poe sees and what Han saw in him. He likes Rey too, but Rey he actually gets time to meet. Obviously, she bounces off to go find Luke at the earliest possibility (which Wedge tries not to think about too hard), but he sees a lot of his friends in her eyes and her determination. Finn he only knows from what other people tell him, and the pain on Poe’s face when he watches Finn sleep.

Wedge likes Finn. He has to remind himself of this a lot. He also has to remind himself that he shouldn’t be letting whatever he and Poe have get all tangled up and troublesome and real.

It is, though. It is, and he’s letting it get that way. He squeezes Poe’s shoulder whenever he sees him repairing his oid jacket -- for Finn, when he wakes.

Poe always looks so grateful, his tired smile twisting up his mouth in a way Wedge is growing attached to.

Wedge likes Finn, but if he doesn’t wake up soon and put them all out of their misery, he thinks he’s going to lose it.

+++

Finn doesn’t wake up. Poe lets his fretting get a little less obsessive. Things seem to finally be settled into something almost normal -- for a rebellion, anyway.

Wedge almost gets over himself. Not quite, but enough where he’s like, having trouble sleeping over his normal woes and traumas instead of worrying about the emotional state of his long-time friend and former student. He’ll never be over himself enough to not lose sleep over his own emotional state but -- you know. He can only do so much.

+++

It all goes to shit soon after. He drowns himself in the chaos of losing people (by the hundreds, by the thousands, and he’s not going to sleep for days, he already feels like he’s going to shake out of his skin), of Poe’s short sighted revolution, of a goddamn salt planet — until suddenly Luke is there and he’s forced to come up for air.

Wedge isn’t force sensitive, but he always knew when Luke was nearby. He can almost feel where Luke has been now, if only by the shock and awe on the faces around him. Tycho used to joke that he was Luke sensitive. Maybe he was right. Wedge finally finds him right as Luke parts from Leia.

“Luke.” Wedge croaks. It’s been so long. Luke has grey hair. To be fair, Wedge probably does too, but that had kind of come with the territory. Wedge feels like he’s been growing grey hair since he was 25. Luke wasn’t ever supposed to grow old.

Luke winks. Of all the things he could have done, after all the years they’ve been apart, all the things they have and haven’t said, Luke’s first reaction to seeing him again is to wink. Wedge laughs. He knows it’ll turn into tears if he lets it, so he holds onto that high and rushes forward.

It’s a mirror of when Poe had come back alive but the history is different. Older. When Luke pulls away and kisses him, it feels like an ending instead of the start. Wedge doesn’t cry until they’re all long gone, flying away towards who knows what on a ship older than he is.

He may not be Force sensitive, but he knows when Luke is gone. Later, he’ll go to Leia and they’ll sit in silence and grip each other’s hands too tight and not meet each other’s eyes. For now, he crawls into the smuggling hatches he knows are under the floors and grinds the heels of his hands into his eyes so the tears smudge away before anyone can see them.

+++

Poe doesn’t ask. About where Wedge went once he was sure they were safely into hyperspace, about Wedge and Luke, about anything. He finds Wedge in the cockpit, checking and rechecking their flight coordinates, and takes the co-pilot’s chair without a word. They sit like that for a long time.

Eventually, Poe reaches over and rubs a thumb across Wedge’s knuckles. It’s a start.

+++

One time, a long time ago, Poe confessed that when he’d been growing up and he and his buddies had played Rebellion, he’d always wanted to be Wedge Antilles.

“Really? Me? Not Luke Skywalker, hero of the Republic?” Wedge had laughed.

The first time, Poe had gotten a little defensive.

“Yeah, you!” Poe had paused, brow furrowed. “You’re the only guy who flew on both Death Stars and lived! You lead Rogue Squadron! Are you kidding?”

Later, when Wedge would bring the story up in an attempt to tease his friend, the tone began to change.

“You’re more than just Luke’s buddy in the history books, Captain.” Wedge remembers Poe sitting on his kitchen counter, peeling some fruit Wedge hadn’t remembered buying. “You’re just as much of a hero as he is.”

“I always had his back.” Wedge doesn’t remember why this was his response. It was true, to be fair. He’d done a lot of other stuff too but most of his memories of the Rebellion involved being the man in Luke’s shadow.

“You weren’t hidden behind it though.” Poe finally picked off enough peel to get at the blue seeds inside the fruit. “People remember you. They saw you, what you did.”

He’d said it casually, but Wedge had seen Poe’s eyes flick up to meet his briefly.

“Next you’ll tell me there were fansites dedicated to me.”

Poe’s silence had stretched for a second too long.

“Poe, did you run a fansite?”

“No!” Poe had looked like he’d wanted to start throwing seeds at Wedge, but settled for eating them instead. “I just. Browsed them sometimes.”

“What was your username?”

“Nevermind. I hope history forgets you.”

Wedge had laughed, but it was still reassuring to know that he had a public background outside of ‘Luke Skywalker’s air support/possible boyfriend’.

+++

Here, now, with Poe’s hand on his, Wedge is struggling to define a future where Luke isn’t in it.

Though, if he’s being honest, Luke hasn’t been in his plans for the future in a long time.

Poe squeezes Wedge’s hand gently.

+++

There’s both a lot more and a lot less to do when 3/4ths of your fighting force dies.

Wedge has frequent periods of frantic activity followed by hours of silence alone in the cockpit of the Falcon. There’s only a few people left who can fly such a fussy ship with any accuracy, so he finds himself holed up in the front of the ship more often than not. It’s kind of nice because he can pretty easily take care of condolence letters while also keeping an eye on the honestly excessive amount of controls. It’s a tricky balance, writing something genuine about each pilot he knew while also maintaining his own mental health, but he’s making it work.

He probably has the easier job. Whoever he doesn’t do, Leia has to do. There were a lot more medical or general assistance workers than pilots.

Poe has been writing some too, which is both jarring and heart wrenching. He hasn’t had to do many before, if any, and whenever Poe has to write more he ends up sitting in the co-pilot’s seat next to Wedge. He hadn’t confided this, but Wedge knows that Poe is finally starting to grasp the full weight of losing lives when he writes these letters. It meant something before, something personal, but grief seems so much larger when you have to tell whole families that their beloved is never coming home. Writing these things is hard enough — Wedge can’t begrudge Poe the desire for company.

It doesn’t help that Poe is suddenly the person people look to answers. Besides Leia and Wedge, Poe is probably the highest ranking officer on board. Tycho is close, but previous grudges from the days of the Rebellion have prevented his promotion for decades, so he’s still stuck at Captain. Between the four of them, they’re the only commanding crew left. Everyone knows Leia has been building Poe up to be her second, but not this soon. Not like this.

“Do you get used to it?” Poe asks, one shift when they’re both curled into their respective piloting seats, datapads in hand.

“Yeah.” Wedge says, because it’s true. It doesn’t get easier, to lose people, but you get used to it. It’s awful when the letters become forms to fill out, but they do. It doesn’t mean Wedge doesn’t think about them, wish that they could have had more. “It’s never easy, but you get over it.”

Bad choice of words. Wedge winces immediately.

“You don’t.” Poe’s mouth quirks in a half-smile, trying to tease.

“I’m old, Poe. I’m allowed to be sad.” More uncomfortably flippant words. Wedge hopes Poe gets what he’s trying to say. He doesn’t mean to treat death like this, to be loose and fast with loss and lives but — Poe turns his datapad off. He looks at a loss for words, which is unusual for Poe. “Poe.” Wedge starts, unsure of where the sentence is going.

Poe shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut. It takes a long time for him to open them. When he does, he looks up and out into the yawning black of space.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this.” He says quietly. Wedge selfishly wishes that Poe both will and never will get used to it at the same time. He’s the one who reaches out this time and weaves his fingers into Poe’s. Poe presses his face into their joined hands, and Wedge feels tears on the back of his fingers. They don’t move for a long time.

+++

Poe kisses him again when they finally finish writing all the letters.

Wedge had sent off his last one a while ago ; admittedly, he’s done countless before, so the construction of condolences comes easier to him then it does to Poe. He quietly investigates the controls for the Falcon while Poe types away.

Wedge can fly basically anything, given about five minutes of poking around. The Falcon is a whole other beast, however, and it’s been a nice distraction to dig around in her circuits and try to figure out why she has so much going on in her cockpit. There’s 30 different switches above their heads, probably just as many on the main dash, and even more buttons and knobs and gears seemingly thrown around without a care. He could ask Chewie, but he’s kind of enjoying the challenge. Also, he can’t speak Wookie. So.

Wedge’s trying to figure out exactly what the secondary screen on the dash does, considering it’s clearly not a targeting system, when he hears Poe shift and stand. He looks up in time to see Poe crouch beside him. Poe looks exhausted.

“Done?” Wedge asks. He puts a hand on Poe’s knee, hoping it comes across as comforting instead of weird.

“For now.” Poe replies. Wedge doesn’t get time to think about the sentence and how much it breaks his heart before Poe is leaning closer and kissing him.

This time, neither of them run away. Wedge closes his eyes and leans in. He still doesn’t know how all this makes him feel or if this is what either of them need. He wants it, Poe wants it, and he’ll take what he can get.

+++

“Do you remember,” Wedge shifts from where he’s sitting on the futon to lean against his back against the wall, “when I said I was old and sad?”

Poe is laying down across from him. They’re both fully dressed, which on some level is tragic but Wedge is grateful for. He doesn’t need distraction right now.

“You’ve said it a few times, Commander.” Poe says with a soft smile, lips barely parting. “Is this going to end in you telling me you’re too old and sad for me?”

“I’m just saying it’s something to consider.” Before Wedge wades even deeper than he already has into the magnetic pull of Poe Dameron, good-hearted dashing pilot.

Poe sits up and leans back on his hands. One stretched out foot bumps Wedge in the knee. “I’ve been considering you since I was 19.” Poe smiles again, bigger this time. “Not including when I was a kid and told my parents I was going to grow up to be like you and also marry you.”

“That’s — cute.” Wedge can almost see the scene play out in his head, Shara’s laughter and all. “Doesn’t make me feel any less old.”

“I know.” Poe leans forward and puts his hand on Wedge’s knee. “Believe it or not, I’ve actually put thought into this. Like, a lot of thought. You just gotta trust me. We can make something work.”

Wedge just looks at Poe. He’s been doing a lot of thinking about this too, but it’s mostly been jumbled and scared and avoidant. Poe has been many things to him — a student, an ally, someone he’s in charge of, a friend. They know each other as well as anyone. All of that has to be worth something at the end of the day.

“I love you.” Poe says, heartfelt and gentle. He then winces, because Wedge knows he’s still working on his big picture choices over his impulse moves and that was not a big picture choice.

Wedge kisses him first this time. He doesn’t think it feels like love, but it's adjacent. He feels Poe smile into his mouth and cup Wedge’s scruffy jaw in his hands. Wedge is gonna trust Poe for as far as this takes them. Maybe they will make something work.

Future looks better all the time.

+++


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They need to find somewhere to land. Anywhere. It doesn’t have to be home, it just has to be safe.
> 
> (Maybe, someday, it will be home)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has a plot now. Fucj. Shit.

Poe looks up at a burning sky. He tries to scream and he can’t. An X-wing is hit above him and spirals out of the sky, crashing near him. The impact drops him and he rolls. It’s a struggle, but he manages to get to his feet and limp towards the X-wing. There’s no way they lived but he has to check. Screams of TIE-fighters zoom over ahead and the real-life screams of Resistance soldiers dying behind him echo them. He cuts his hand on the shattered glass of the cockpit of the wreck. He hauls himself up, wiping ash out of his eyes, and looks down.

+++

Poe jolts awake with a snort and the feeling of Wedge getting into bed. His heart is pounding a million miles a hour and he feels disoriented for a minute trying to remember where he is. He’s sweating under the few thin blankets he could beg borrow and steal for them. Wedge wraps an arm around his waist and kisses his neck.

“Sorry. I tried to be quiet.” Wedge tucks his hand up into Poe’s where it lays against Poe’s chest. Poe forces himself to relax his fingers out of a shaking fist.

“You’re fine.” Poe tucks his foot between Wedge’s. “Your feet are freezing. Wear better socks.”

Wedge laughs quietly. “I’ll try.” He sniffs as he presses his cheek to Poe’s shoulder and shifts to get comfortable. Poe hopes the exhaustion and cold of long space travel don’t end up getting Wedge sick. They can’t afford Wedge bed ridden right now, let alone sickness spreading through the whole ship. 

A comfortable quiet stretches between them, broken up by the familiar sounds of the Falcon in flight. Poe doesn’t think he’ll be sleeping anytime soon, so he just closes his eyes and relaxes. No place has really felt like home since he left Yavin 4 for the last time, not since his X-wing blew and took friends with it, but this is about as good as it gets.

“Looked like you were having a bad dream.” Wedge mutters behind him. It’s an open door, an offer to listen. Poe doesn’t want to take it, but he appreciates it. 

“I’m okay.”

Poe feels Wedge frown into his shoulder, but he nods anyway.

“Love you.” Wedge says, half-asleep, and Poe almost chokes. He’s sure he’s said it to Wedge half a dozen times, meant every single one, but Wedge hasn’t said it back. It hasn’t bothered Poe. He knows Wedge’s history, knows there’s even more that Wedge keeps locked down somewhere deep inside, so he was happy with what they have.

No matter how bad it gets, he’s going to hold onto that. That moment, the two of them wrapped together on a mattress on the floor, Poe will remember that. He feels the wild urge to take that ring off his neck and put it in Wedge’s hand. He doesn’t, because holy shit Dameron slow down you horrible romantic idiot, but he also doesn’t repress the huge smile on his face before turning his head around to coax Wedge into a kiss.

“Love you too.” He says, his heart jumping in his chest. “Go to sleep, sad old man.”

Wedge grunts and kicks Poe in the ankle.

+++

Poe tumbles in and out of sleep for the rest of the ‘night’ (or whatever counts for that in space). He only rouses Wedge once or twice, who blearily asks if he’s alright and then drops dead asleep as soon as Poe reassures him.

It’s not a true reverse of normal, but Wedge is usually a much more restless sleeper. Poe’s glad he’s finally getting some real sleep. If he had a bigger ego, he’d say that Wedge is sleeping better since he started sharing Poe’s bed, but he’s pretty sure that’s not it. Maybe because, despite the fact that they’re playing hide and seek with a fascist regime bent on their personal destruction, this is the calmest it’s been for Wedge in years. There’s not really a lot to do right now besides desperately scan for a friendly planet to land on. On some level, it feels like a break.

A supplies-starved, cramped, anxious break. It’s better than before, though. 

After about 7 hours of failed attempts to snooze, Poe wiggles out of Wedge’s grasp and makes his way to the cockpit to take over the next shift. Rey is there, and she gives him a hard look when he trips on panel on the way in. 

“It grabbed me.” He explains. She raises her eyebrows.

“They’re tricky like that.” She replies mildly. 

“You see, this is why you’re my favorite.” Poe tries to gently push her out of the captain’s chair, but she frowns and smacks his leg. He takes the co-pilot’s seat instead. “You understand the dangers of this ship. Always trying to trip you up.” He leans over the navigation system. “Or blow you up.”

“She’s doing her best.” Defensive of her ship, as always. “You can go get something to eat. I have it up here.”

“Never hungry when I wake up.” Which is true, especially when he doesn’t sleep well. Always makes him feel sick. “You should go eat yourself. You’ve been here since I went to bed.”

Rey shrugs. She said in passing once that she started to hide food around the ship once she knew she was going to have it for a while, because you never know. Poe’s seen Finn and Rose do it too. It wouldn’t be surprising that a lot of that had ended up front, somewhere easy to access but hard to find. Poe hasn’t had to think like that very much in his life. Rey is a lot younger than him but she’s seen and done a lot more. He pushes aside his misguided need to do something, to worry about her, and lets the conversation glide to a comfortable stop.

They enjoy the quiet rumbles of the ship together for a while before Poe notices that Rey seems to be trying to put words together.

“You know Commander Antilles pretty well, right?” She eventually asks. When she turns to look at him, her eyes are bright. Poe smothers a smile. That’s one way to put it.

“Yeah, I’d say so. He taught me a lot.”

Rey beams, and it lights up her whole body. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to him, but - “ She shifts in her seat. “- Okay, do you remember those flight sims they made with all the heroes of the Rebellion?”

How could he forget? He played the Rogue Squadron one basically right up until he went to the Flight Academy.

“Those taught me how to fly. I didn’t — you know, I didn’t have anyone who would teach me, but I managed to dig up an old system and I found the Luke Skywalker and Rogue Squadron discs, and - “ Rey’s voice gets both more energetic and softer, nostalgia for a girl who doesn’t have much to be nostalgic about.

“I had those too.” Poe smiles right along with her. “I played the Rogue Squadron one, mostly. I remember I was always so mad they didn’t make one about my mom.”

Which, admittedly, why would they? But she was the best pilot Poe knew as a kid, so obviously she should have had one.

“Your mom? She flew for the Rebellion?” Rey tucks her feet under her and looks at him with rapt attention.

“Both her and Pa did. She flew for Luke Skywalker a few times.” Poe grins. “Which isn’t as cool now that you’ve actually trained with him, but when I was a kid? I got a lot of points for that.”

“I still think that’s cool.” Rey says. She tilts her head at him, like she’s seeing him for the first time all over again. “Did she teach you to fly?”

“A little.” He remembers sitting in her lap, reaching up for the controls. “Wedge taught me most of what I know. She - she passed away when I was pretty young.” All these years, and the words still scrape his mouth on the way out. 

“I get that.” Rey replies, which is both so much better and significantly worse than what he normally gets when he talks about Mamá. She looks like she wants to move closer towards him, maybe reach a hand out, but has second thoughts. She’s getting more physically affectionate, Poe’s noticed, but it doesn’t come easy yet. “Sorry.”

Poe doesn’t really know what she’s apologizing for, so he struggles to come up with a way to respond. Thankfully, she saves them both.

“I just wanted to ask you something. Not to change the topic.” She taps her fingers against her boot rhythmically. Nervously. 

“About Wedge?” He mirrors her, curling up in the chair and resting his chin in his palm. “I can do that, but you can always ask him too.”

She shrugs again. “I just want to know what he’s like. I haven’t had a chance to talk to him.” Her smile returns, bright and fond all over again. “I think I picked him and Gavin the most in the flight sims.”

“Gavin Darklighter?” Makes sense. Gavin Darklighter was from Tatootine, if Poe remembers correctly. For a kid growing up poor on a desert planet, dreaming of flying, Luke and Gavin were probably big heroes. 

“Yeah. Captain Celchu too. I’ve talked to him a couple of times though. He’s less— ” Rey’s face scrunches up. “He’s easy to talk to.”

Wedge is probably one of the easiest people to talk to that Poe knows, but he’s also been one of Poe’s dearest friends for over half of his life. Tycho and Wedge are often together if Wedge isn't with Poe or Leia, so Poe is kind of surprised that Rey didn’t run into them at the same time. In fact, he’s also kind of surprised she came to him instead of Tycho or Leia about Wedge. They’ve both known him way longer.

“Wedge is easy to talk to, I promise. He’s a good guy.” Poe untucks one of his feet and gently bumps her seat. “You’re a jedi. You can totally talk to whoever you want. If he’s rude, just mindtrick him or something.”

Rey laughs. “You wouldn’t be mad?”

“He can take care of himself.” Poe twists his ankle to spin the Rey’s chair a little, making her laugh again. “Seriously, Rey. I could talk about Wedge for days and it wouldn’t be as good as just talking to him.”

“I know.” She looks out the window. “It’s just weird. I didn’t think I’d ever meet any of these people and now I’m on a ship with them for the next who-knows how long. I feel like I know him but I don’t. Not really.”

“I know what you mean.” Poe remembers meeting Wedge for the first time very clearly. It was scary and thrilling and Poe was so sure he was going to say something stupid or rude. He got through it alright, and it clearly all worked out for him in the end, but he knows the first shake of fear all too well. “Do you want to hear some stories about him?”

Rey smiles warmly at him. “I’d love that.” She curls her fingers into a loose fist and looks away briefly. She looks back at him, and smiles again, a little less sure. “I’d like to hear about your mom too, if that’s okay. She sounds amazing.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”

+++

It’ll take more than a solid 10 hours sleep to erase the dark half-moons under Wedge’s eyes, but he looks more alert than normal when Poe peeks into their makeshift bedroom later in the day. Wedge is leaning against the wall, datapad in his lap, fingers tapping against his knee as he squints in concentration.

“Any luck?” Poe drops onto the mattress with as much grace as he can muster and lays his head against Wedge’s thigh.

“Maybe.” Wedge runs a hand through his own hair before laying his hand on Poe’s head. “A solid maybe. It’s a bit of a trek but I’m pretty sure they’d never expect us to go back there.”

Oh no. It’s Hoth. They’re going to Hoth.

“I thought about Hoth, but that didn’t work out so great last time.” Wedge continues. Poe mentally thanks the Force or god or whatever saved them from that horrible fate. He may not have grown up in a desert, but Poe also never saw snow until long after he graduated the Academy. He’s sure he’d survive, but at what cost? 

“What base is it?”

Wedge smiles, a wicked glint of teeth.

+++

“No.” Leia doesn’t even look up.

“I’m not saying we go to the old base, Leia.” Wedge sits across from her. “There was an old enclave on Dantooine, thousands of years ago, during the Mandalorian Wars. It’s been abandoned forever. I only know about it because Luke told me about it.”

Leia finally looks up, long enough to give Wedge A Look. A kind of “I get that he was your boyfriend or whatever but he was my literal twin brother if you think I don’t also know all about his weird Jedi adventures you’re an idiot” Look.

Tycho looks embarrassed enough for all of them. Wedge presses on.

“It’s all the way across the planet. Dantooine is far enough out that we’re away from the main system but closer in than they’ll expect.”

“The Empire made the mistake of ignoring Dantooine once. I doubt the First Order will repeat it.” Leia looks back to the star maps in front of her, signaling the conversation is over. Wedge sighs.

“We should go.” Rey says from the doorway. Poe only jumps a little. “The Jedi only left that enclave to be closer to the center of the Republic. It’s more secure than any of the abandoned Rebel bases.”

Leia appraises her carefully. “How do you know that?”

Rey’s face shifts through a few emotions: shame, guilt, pride. “I have books. Old ones.”

Leia’s eyes sparkle. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. From way back then. I don’t have a map or anything, but I think Commander Antilles is right.” She glances at Wedge, then at Tycho, then at Leia. “I think it’s the best chance we have.”

Leia sits up a little straighter. “And it being an old Jedi enclave means nothing to you?”

Rey meets her gaze. “I can keep us safe there. That’s what it means.”

They don’t break eye contact for a long few moments. Wedge glances over his shoulder at Poe. Tycho smiles, raising his eyebrows at Leia.

Leia finally leans back in her chair. “Commander Antilles?”

Wedge looks back to Leia. “General?”

“Set the course to the enclave. Keep us quiet. Take your time.”

Wedge ducks his head to hide his grin. “Of course, General.”

Rey looks at Poe, relieved and excited and nervous all at once. He winks. If anyone can get them there, it’s Wedge.

+++

Dantooine is a big planet. It reminds Poe of D’qar, if D’qar had really big angry hellhounds and less trees. 

It also has a weight to it that Poe can’t explain. Rey says it’s the Force — that it’s so strong here it’s almost tangible. Sometimes when she’s walking from place to place, she’ll just stop and close her eyes and breathe, like it overwhelms her. Finn’s done it a couple of times too, which Rey thinks is thrilling and Poe finds a little scary. They need all they can get right now, but Finn has a big enough target on his back as it is. 

They land the Falcon at the enclave just long enough to unload it before moving it to compound miles away. It’s not a perfect hiding spot, but the tarnished mental of the ship blends decently with the wear and tear Dantooine has inflicted on the old home. It’ll take more than a brief scan of the planet to see it, anyway, which is the best they can hope for. 

There’s dozens of these compounds littering the plains around the enclave, relics of former rich folks who decided the best way to keep safe was to settle down near a bunch of Jedi and hope for the best. They probably all moved on when the Jedi left, Poe guesses. They didn’t leave much behind, and most of what they did leave has rusted away. The structures still stand firm, which is mostly what they need anyway. The enclave becomes a main base, but even with their reduced numbers it doesn’t have quite enough space for everyone and all the remaining equipment and supplies. Besides, if there’s one thing the First Order has taught them, it’s that the more concentrated they are, the more casualties they suffer when danger comes knocking.

Wedge and Poe stay in the enclave, along with Leia and most of their remaining pilots. Tycho and the few minor officers left each take a nearby compound to set up as a base. Most of them are within speeder distance, if not walking distance. Communications go up fairly easily once they get power up and running again. They don’t have much, but so far everything is going better than Leia hoped and about as good as Wedge anticipated. Rey is clearly waiting for something more — though she has yet to tell anyone exactly what that is. She and Finn will vanish for hours at a time, wandering the groves and caves scattered throughout the plains, searching. Rose goes with them when she can, but she’s still recovering. She actually spends most of her time in the makeshift docking bay, piecing together whatever ships they can out of the mess of parts the Jedi left behind. There’s not many ships that could leave atmo, which is a hurdle they’ll need to leap at some point very soon, but she’s managed to drag a few speeders and land craft back into the land of the living. It’s something. It’s more than they had. Poe misses his X-Wing.

Really, without anything to fly, Poe is feeling a little adrift. He’s been scouring for someone, anyone who can help them, but so far he’s coming up short. People are looking to him to come up with some kind of miracle, and all he’s got on his hands is a few rogues and scavengers he met while working undercover who might be able to get them more medical supplies. He keeps trying to remind himself that’s a lot, that he’s doing something, but small victories seem real small in the face of what they’re up against.

Wedge spends a lot time with Leia, hunched over an old Jedi war table, refusing to sleep and moving pieces around the board and giving Poe exhausted half smiles when Poe tries to get them both to turn in. 

All in all, Poe feels kind of like he’s grasping at straws, hoping for something to help them. To save them. He puts a hand on the back of Wedge’s neck as Wedge and Leia continue to debate and stares at the sky through the small window in the ceiling. It’s not burning yet.

+++

Despite all their worries and fears and constant running around, the enclave really is a beautiful place. The grasses are bright and lush and stretch in an ocean of green as far as the eye can see. When the kath hounds aren’t nipping at the heels of unaware Resistance members, they slumber in red piles under long limbed trees. The sky only gets dark at night, otherwise staying a beautiful pale blue scattered with thin clouds. 

Many of the Resistance members have never been anywhere like this, either growing up spacers, on scrappy Outer Rim planets with rough climates, or on planets so packed with people you could barely see the sky for the buildings. When there is a second to spare, people lounge on the outskirts of their compounds, soaking in the sun and enjoying clean air. Finn in particular does all his work outside if he can, sitting with Rose and Poe while they try and get small portable engines to work. 

“I got stationed on Starkiller as soon as I was out of basic.” Finn says as explanation one such afternoon, frowning at the greasy mess in his lap. “Before that, it was always ships. Didn’t want us running off, I guess.”

Poe and Rose exchange pained looks. Finn catches them and shrugs. Poe can tell it hurts, the memory of being trapped and brainwashed to believe in something cruel and horrible, but Finn doesn’t want pity. “I’m here now.” He says, and smacks the machine with the butt of his wrench. It groans, and Finn replies with a groan of his own. “Come on.” He pleads to the machine. “Please. I just want one speeder to run. Just one!” They only laugh at him a little.

Poe likes it well enough here. It’s not as humid as it is back home, which is both sort of nice and kind of weird. He does not like the kath hounds, but they do keep Dantooine from feeling uncomfortably serene. Also, one time they chased Wex around the base because he forgot to turn ration crumbs out of his pockets, which kept Poe and Karé laughing for days. 

He does like the garden, though. It’s the best spot in the whole plains.

It’s grown out of control in the thousands of years it’s been untended. Vines spill out over low sun-baked clay walls. Trees stretch towards the sky, higher than anything you see out on the plains. It seems like birds from miles around come here to pick at fruit and the bugs that flutter around massive flowers in shades and clusters unlike Poe’s ever seen. There’s a small pool, tucked further back among the trees, and it’s almost formed its own swampland due to the shade and humidity built up from the surrounding thick forestry. It’s got an astounding amount of biodiversity, thrilling the few science geeks among them who are using it as a way to source food for the compounds. 

To Poe, it reminds him of home.

He found it a few weeks into their arrival on Dantooine. He’d been ducking around the halls of the main base, trying to build a mental map in case of evacuation, when he took a left turn and came suddenly out into the sun.

He’d had to stop for a second for his eyes to adjust. When he finally blinked the sun flares away, he’d seen Wedge off in the corner of the first clearing of the garden, crouching over something. He must have been out there a while, because sweat was making his white shirt stick to his skin. Poe watched Wedge stop whatever he was doing to adjust a sleeve, rolled up his arm as high as he could get it. The line of his shoulders were almost relaxed.

“Hey.” Poe called out, stepping out into the sun. “Where have you been hiding this place?”

Wedge looked up and grinned. “I just found it yesterday. If anything, it’s been hiding from us. Come look.”

Poe rolled up his own sleeves as he walked towards Wedge. He bent forward, hands on knees, and peered at a small green stalk coming up from the ground. “It’s a plant. Neat.” 

Wedge laughed. “I took one of the seeds from the fruit I was eating yesterday and planted it. It’s already sprouted.” He reached out and gently ran a finger over the tiny sprout. “It’s amazing. The Jedi must have done something to the soil.”

“I didn’t realize the Force could do that.”

“Apparently.” Wedge smiled down at the plant, then looked up at Poe. “I should get back. I’ve got more planning to do. Walk with me?”

Poe offered a hand to help Wedge up. “Always.”

Wedge took it and Poe had hoisted him back to his feet. They head for the door, but not before Wedge stops one last time to gaze out at the garden and the horizon beyond it. Poe stopped to look at Wedge, outlined by the sun and the leaves and the gentle shift of flowers in the wind. 

“I love you.” Poe had said, because he won’t ever keep that to himself when either of them could die any day. He won’t ever let it go unsaid.

Wedge looked to him with a grin. “You’re only saying that because I got you a garden.” Wedge gestured to the foliage. “Which, considering the garden I got you —“

Poe kissed him. Partially to stop his bad jokes, but mostly because he won’t ever let that go undone either.

“I love you.” Wedge had said, Poe’s face in his hands, bags under his eyes darker now that they were out of the sun. It was still careful, still unsure, but Poe still holds the sound of it close. 

+++

A couple months in, Poe finds something. A miracle. Someone out on the far-most Outer Rim got the distress signal with Leia’s code. Leader of a decently sized mercenary group and friends with more than a few smugglers, he offers Poe the services of himself and his whole crew to the Resistance.

“What’s the catch?” Poe asks, in a mail to the merc buried under several encryptions and redirects

“I have a debt I owe. This will help me pay it.”

“To the General?”

“To the galaxy.”

He refuses to say more. He accepts the arranged meeting Poe hastily suggests, set a few star systems over from Dantooine. They’ll have to take the Falcon, but at this point Poe’s feeling desperate enough to try anything. Leia, on the other hand, is wary.

“What’s his name? Did he even say?” She sits at the war table as usual, poised and calm but with more gray hair than even a few weeks ago.

“Arc. I didn’t get a last name.” Poe rubs his eyes. “He runs the Saber Mercenaries. I’ve heard of them before, but nothing concrete. I don’t know, General. It’s all I got.”

On multiple levels, but he doesn’t say that. Given the hand Leia lays on his arm, he doesn’t have to.

“Be careful.” She says, which the best blessing he will get from her. 

Wedge wants to go, Poe knows he does, but they need him here more than Poe needs him out there. He grinds his teeth the whole ride out to the Falcon, hands tight on the speeder controls.

“You have to trust me, Wedge.” Poe says gently when they arrive, watching Rey and Finn riding up from across the plains. “Besides, I’ll have a Jedi and a half with me. And a wookie. And BB-8.”

“Last time you went off on some mysterious meeting without me, you almost died.” Wedge says. He looks like he wants to say something else, but can’t quite figure out what it is. He settles for putting a hand on Poe’s jaw and kissing him. 

“We’ll take care of him, Commander.” Finn says, hopping off the speeder. “Nothing will touch him if we have anything to say about it.”

Wedge looks at Finn like he’s a little bit in love with him, which is fair considering that everyone is a little bit in love with Finn. Poe certainly is, and given the fond way Rey looks at Finn, she is too. “I’ll hold you to that, Finn.” Wedge claps Finn on the shoulder and smiles at Rey. “May the Force be with all of you.”

Rey grins from ear to ear. “May the Force be with you, too.” She replies.

They load one of the speeders into the Falcon in case they need it once they’re planet-side, and get vaguely cussed out by Chewie for almost knocking him over in the process. Poe watches Wedge drive off in the other until he’s over a hill and out of sight. 

“Right.” Poe turns back to his friends. “Shall we?”

Finn smiles and bumps shoulders with him. “Lead the way.”

+++

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this chapter is Between Me and You by Brandon Flowers. I’d be lyin if I said i wasn’t curating a whole playlist

**Author's Note:**

> (Jazz hands) ta da
> 
> For those curious, the title of this series was taken from Girl in The War by Josh Ritter which, as i think the first person to write this ship, I get to declare the Wedge/Poe song.


End file.
